We lost our dog in September. We just got a new one, five days ago.
My 10-year-old daughter is obsessed with him, to the extent that
she wakes herself up every hour or so to ask how he’s doing. That’s
what happened when I was watching—again—Scorsese’s Dylan
documentary. My daughter woke up, and asked about the dog. I said
he was fine. She asked where he was. I said, “Right next to me.”
She said, “What are you doing?” I said, “Watching a show.” She
said, “I can’t sleep.” I said, “C’mon downstairs, and watch with
me.” I wouldn’t have asked her if it were a school night, but it
wasn’t—we had our parent-teacher conference the next day. So she
came down. She happened to arrive at the point where Dylan was
undergoing his second great metamorphosis—the first was from
Zimmerman to Dylan, the second was from folkie to rocker. She knew
of Bob Dylan; since she turned two, I’ve asked her to name the
singer, whenever a Dylan song comes on, and she’s always been able
to answer, “Bob Dylan!” But I think she was taken aback by the
concert footage that Scorsese intersperses throughout the film—the
almost sacrificial Manchester concert from ’66. Those old-school
teeth, those seer’s eyes, rolling back into his head as he
sings—she said, “This is a little creepy.” I answered in the
time-honored baby-boomer fashion, misty-eyed nostalgia passing for
wisdom: “Yeah, but look what one guy was able to achieve with just
a guitar!” Then they showed him flipping the cards for
“Subterranean Homesick Blues,” and that’s when she said, “If he was
around today, he’d just rap all this. And he’d have to be
cute.”

Do you think your daughter is correct in her assessment
of how things would go if the young Dylan appeared for the first
time in 2013 and tried to break into the music business now instead
of during the 1960s? How would that alternative universe play
out?

Unfortunately, I think she’s spot on. Like any geezer, I always
worry about that—“Who’s going to be her Dylan? Who’s going to be
her Stones?” But I don’t think she’s worried at all. She’s a
10-year-old music fan—she’s more worried about who’s going to be my
Ke$ha, and my Katy Perry. Still, I wonder if there is ever going to
be another Dylan—and what kind of conditions would have to arise in
order to produce one. A new drug? A new war? A revolution? Peak
oil? But even those things would produce something and somebody
other than Dylan. It’s not just because, let’s face it, he’d be
laughed at if he tried out for one of the singing shows. It’s
because some things in music disappear and don’t come back—not just
the song structures, or the styles, but the emotions they conjure.
I want her to feel the way I felt—and still feel—listening to Bob
Dylan. I can’t imagine my life, if those feelings hadn’t existed.
They seemed to connect me to something much bigger than myself. But
she doesn’t want to feel the way I felt listening to Dylan any more
than I wanted to feel the way my father felt listening to Benny
Goodman.

Lesson learned (if any)?

Um, the times they are changing? Sorry. The main thing I learned
was what I learn all the time—I’m pretty old, and my daughter’s
pretty smart.

Just one more thing.It’s been a long time
since my daughter was eager to answer when a Bob Dylan song comes
on and I ask who’s singing. She used to proudly announce, “Bob
Dylan!” But that was back before she had musical autonomy, and her
favorite record was “Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison.” Now she just
rolls her eyes, and has been rolling her eyes ever since she
listened to “Dynamite”—her generation’s gateway drug for synthetic
dance pop. But my favorite part about what she said watching the
Dylan documentary was “if he was around today.” It echoes perfectly
the way she prefaces her questions when she asks me, say, if they
had Minecraft or red Mountain Dew: “Back when you were alive.”